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"What's going on here?" I wondered, blinking at the large penis jutting upward in the center of our kitchen table.

It wasn't the sort of thing I expected to find after a long, hard day at work.

"I found it upstairs," Melissa, my wife of nearly sixteen years told me and she looked decidedly unhappy about it.

"A dildo?" I almost smiled at the absurdity of it. I mean, the thing looked like a big, black cock. A very realistic one with a circumcised head and veins, even a pair of balls just above what I assumed had to be a suction cup to hold it in place.

"You know how much I hate this sort of thing, John," Melissa reminded me. She didn't like anything that smacked of pornography and sex was something best done in the dark, with the door locked and the sheets over our heads. A dildo…

"Uhhh…It isn't mine," I told her, just to make sure we were clear on that point!

"I know that!" she said with some annoyance. "I was cleaning the kids' bedrooms and…"

"Hey," I held up my hands as if pushing her away, because I knew where this was heading and… "Monica is your department, remember?"

We'd long ago divided up our two children with regard to the facts of life and the birds and the bees, you know. Our seventeen-year-old daughter was Melissa's responsibility when it came to things like her first period at twelve, wanting breast implants at fifteen, and now, apparently, sex toys. They do grow up fast, don't they? I limited myself to putting genuine fear in the hearts and minds of Monica's boyfriends, something I had a genuine talent for, being a police officer by inclination as much as trade.

Our fifteen-year-old son, Joshua, on the other hand, received the benefits of his old man's vast wisdom. Thankfully that had largely involved reassuring the boy that jerking off is perfectly normal, but to try and save some for a rainy day, keep a condom in your wallet to impress your buddies, and if a girl says no, buy her ice cream and jerk off later. Josh wasn't quite old enough to have a girlfriend yet, that sort thing required a car and he was still a year away, so life was good for me. All I really had to worry about was his mother finding some Playboys in his room or something, which would reassure me as much as it pissed Melissa off. Josh wasn't quite as rough and tumble as I remember being at his age, but he had a lot of growing left to do and…

"I didn't find it in Monica's room," Melissa told me and that pregnant fact hung between us for several seconds before I had to ask…

"Where did you find it?"

"Under your son's mattress," Melissa said, making it quite clear that she wasn't going to have anything to do with it anymore.

"You're kidding," I said dumbly, knowing she wasn't. "But…He's a boy!"

"I want that…that…thing out of my house!" Melissa left the kitchen calling for Monica and her intentions were plain. There would be no distractions when I had my little man-to-man with Josh.

"Josh, Josh, Josh…" I sighed, standing in the kitchen as I heard my wife and daughter leave for the mall or wherever it is women go when disaster strikes.

My son didn't take after me a whole lot and I knew that. I'd even accepted it. Oh, he was my boy alright, I had no doubt that he'd sprang from my loins, as they say, but he took after his mother and that was a fact. Too much, I thought to myself as I stared at that rubber phallus, planted in the center of the table like an obscene centerpiece for a homosexual banquet. Yeah. That was the thought in my head. My son was a faggot. What else would explain a nine inch dildo hidden under his bed? Why couldn't it have been a Playboy or an X-rated DVD, or…Hell, a bag of marijuana would have been better than this! Dope I could understand. I could do something about that, but a dildo?

Nothing in life prepares a father for such a thing.

It felt like a betrayal of not only our relationship as father and son, but of my own manhood. What if someone found out? Selfish thoughts filled my mind, the way they must when the instincts for self-preservation kick in. Of course I'd sacrifice anything for Joshua's safety, for his health and well-being. There was no question of that. I'd face any danger to preserve my children, but this was different. This wasn't life and death, it was a dildo. It was a choice that my son had made. I'd never believed that people are born queer. That there's some "gay gene" acquired by chance at the moment of conception. People decide who and what they are. I believed that my entire life and I wouldn't change my mind only to ease the pain of my son's betrayal. I wouldn't relieve him of the burden of guilt and responsibility by saying, "It's God's fault. He made my son this way."

But…

I frowned and narrowed my eyes, considering the possibility that it might have been my fault. Melissa's too, but more mine as Joshua's father. Did I do something to influence the boy? Or did I not do something? Did I hug him too much as a child, not enough; did I encourage this somehow? I relived our lives, the memories of my son growing up. I remembered our successes and failures, the good times and bad. I'd been the best father I could have been, I was certain of it. I'd made mistakes as any man does, but I'd never abused the boy, never neglected him. When my work required that I disappoint him, or my judgments seemed harsh and unreasonable, I'd gone out of my way to explain the reasons. I listened to him and if I didn't spoil the boy, I certainly rewarded him for his good efforts, more so than his actual accomplishments. After all, honestly trying to do our best is the most we can ask of anyone, even ourselves.

There is no disgrace in trying and failing, that was the lesson I'd tried to impart above all else. We do our best, even when it hurts, especially then. That can be the only true demonstration of character and I thought he'd learned that. But this…Disgrace was staring me in the face. It wasn't my fault, not Joshua's mother's. Not God's or the work of Satan himself, it was a choice that my son had made for reasons I would probably never understand. I resigned myself to that fact, unhappily and deeply wounded by the admission. I'd try. I'd listen to the boy and weigh his explanations, but much like that black dildo on my wife's table, in the traditional center of our home – the family kitchen, reason would remain as out of place as it was unwelcome.

Well, I decided, if Joshua wanted to be a cocksucker, if he wanted other men to fuck him like a girl, there was no sense in living a lie. It would pain the boy's mother greatly, but I'd much rather see him as a heterosexual girl than a homosexual boy. People would understand that at least, and these days it wasn't so complicated a procedure, was it? I made a mental note to look into the subject, discreetly, of course. He'd have to start living like a girl, wearing the clothes and the makeup, but Monica would be helpful. Such a good girl, my Princess, she'd be willing to help her younger brother make the transition. Perhaps even Melissa would come to understand and appreciate the only real solution to our son's dilemma.

I picked up the dildo, feeling my body swell with determination and all my doubts and fears fled before a clarity of purpose that I found very comforting. If my son had put himself on this path, he could no longer be my son…He'd simply have to become a girl, whether he liked it or not. The decision, after all, had been his and like everything else Joshua had tried to do in his short life, I'd give him nothing but my complete, loving support. Even if it meant shoving that black dildo up his ass and spanking him with my belt, which unfortunately, I was certain it would. We do our best, fathers as well as sons, even when it hurts. My only hope was that he'd someday appreciate the sacrifice I was making for his happiness and not thank me for it, but simply apply it in the distant future to his own children…

"Well," I told myself as I marched up the stairs. "Maybe someday Josh and her husband will be able to adopt."